Grab your bear can or camp chair, kick your feet up and chew the fat about anything Sierra Nevada related that doesn't quite fit in any of the other forums. Within reason, (and the HST rules and guidelines) this is also an anything goes forum. Tell stories, discuss wilderness issues, music, or whatever else the High Sierra stirs up in your mind.

Well, my thursday this last week didn't exactly start off on the right foot. I usually bike to work, and to top my already dreary day, on my way home my bike chain fell off, and over the handlebars I go onto me elbow, shoulder, head, then back. After greasing up my hands to try and repair my bike, I made it home with only a scraped, strawberried elbow, wrist, and shoulder. I salvaged what was left in the day by taking a much needed walk down by the bay in the now rare sunlight and sunset we have been seeing in the bay area. When I got home, I tried starting up my computer....nothing - it was in my backpack during the fall. To make a long store short, here I am typing on a new computer, spending my weekend trying to salvage what was left from my old hard-drive. Oh, how a long week in the sierra would do me well...

My Mt bike hasn't thrown me over the handle bars yet, when my chain comes off the chain rings I just have to back peddle a little and it goes on by itself usually. I did crash and burn about 5 years ago on it. I took a curve on a dirt road too fast and down I went. To the ER I went later to get patched up. Then it got worse. The next day I got a call from the hospital that I needed to come back in for another xray. It turns out I collapsed a lung and had to be admitted to reinflate my left lung. And they also showed me the three cracked bones. One night in the hospital. Fun.

A college student, living in Venice, Ca, the only way to get around on weekends was a 10-speed – on the bike path from Manhattan Beach (Hermosa) to Santa Monica. Anyway, somewhere in the Marina Del Rey area, along the narrow crowded streets, some bozo opened a car door (pick-up) just in front of me, catching my front wheel, and I too went head-over-heels...over the bars. I bounced off the inside of door - breaking off the hinges, and wound up kicking the car’s passenger in the head - coming to rest lying on my back on the driver’s lap, inside of the car. My bike – a classic Motobecane (I loved that bike) – bent…ruined, a cop witnessed it all, and gave the person a ticket, but I never collected anything back on my bike.
Lots of bruises...lucky nothing broken.